India sees fastest growth in new mobile-phone connections

New Delhi: India saw the fastest growth in new mobile-phone connections with 18 million net additions in the third quarter of 2014, followed by China with 12 million new additions, a report by Swedish mobile network equipment maker Ericsson said on Tuesday.

Globally, there were 110 million new cellphone subscriptions in the same period.

By the end of 2014, the report said, there will be 7,100 million subscriptions, and the number is projected to grow to 9,500 million by 2020.

The number of smartphones, which account for just 37% of all mobile-phone subscriptions, will reach 2,700 million by 2014, and growing at 15% compounded annual growth rate, will cross 6,100 by 2020.

The report also said, “By 2020, 90% of the world population over 6 years old will have a mobile phone, with number of smartphones reaching 6.1 billion.”

“The falling cost of handsets, coupled with improved usability and increasing network coverage, are factors that are making mobile technology a global phenomenon that will soon be available to the vast majority of the world’s population, regardless of age or location,” said Rima Qureshi, senior vice president, chief strategy officer and head of M&A, Ericsson.

Mobile video traffic is also set to increase tenfold and will constitute 55% of all mobile data traffic by 2020.